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COVID: Stats that matter

| January 22, 2021 1:00 AM

Re: COVID-19 Watch panel, Sunday, Jan. 10, page A3.

Once again the Panhandle Health District summary of cases body count is devoid of any actionable context. Two contextual data points are meaningful for the public, and I’d be shocked stupid if PHD doesn’t have these readily available: age and geography.

Age is the primary consideration because it speaks volumes about who needs to be vaccinated with haste to relieve pressure on hospitals, as well as save lives. Geography is important because it paints a map of where folks at greatest risk, with relationship to age, should not go.

Breaking age groups into just two categories would be highly instructional: above and below 65 for Kootenai County, e.g., Total Cases: 13,825/11,475/2,359; New Cases: 178/145/33; Deaths: 130/108/22; Total Hospitalized: 883/733/150; PHD new cases: 222/184/38; Cases at KH: 87/80/7; Cases Critical: 23/22/1.

Could the macro-picture be any clearer? Could a further age breakout, say monthly, be even more instructive, e.g., by decade in each category? I’ll bet it would be!

These national statistics, amalgamated from health districts, are readily available from the CDC, so PHD must be reporting them upstream. Why aren’t they being published here?

JAMES STRONG

Hayden